“There Are More Things” (1974)

[spoilers] This story by Jorge Luis Borges is from his collection The Book of Sand. It is formally dedicated “to the memory of H.P. Lovecraft.” There seems to be some confusion at Wikipedia about the dedication because Borges is elsewhere dismissive of Lovecraft. Is it a case like Scott Bradfield (and kinda sorta me), a reversal after a lifetime of bewilderment and disdain? It took me a second reading for Borges’s story to really click, but ultimately it is good at hitting the high notes of dread, piling on with humdrum detail. It’s short but requires a good deal of setup. Reports of glazing over are common among readers. I thought, as with Lovecraft, that it got better with familiarity, as the concepts settle in. You have to read this stuff slowly, more slowly than I can always manage. Borges indulges the Lovecraftian with a mysterious mansion changing hands, windows permanently covered, work that goes on all night, and strange furniture. I like the ending, but I see why some complain. Borges foreshadows monsters more and more intensely, and just at the moment we are about to see them—the story stops. “... I heard something coming up the ramp—something heavy and slow and plural. Curiosity got the better of fear, and I did not close my eyes.” That’s how it ends. No attempt at further description is made (which I must say is not very Lovecraftian). By the literary rules under which I’m pretty sure Borges is operating, this first-person narrator survives the encounter to tell the tale. We know that (or we think we know that)—and, further, he tells it calmly, soberly, thoroughly. What did he see? One element of Lovecraft not used here is the tendency for characters to be high-strung and/or go mad. It’s an interesting omission on Borges’s part. Exactly what he is up to with this story I don’t know—a general hallmark of his work. It’s a reasonably good facsimile of Lovecraft overall and strikes that mood well. Why doesn’t the narrator tell us what he saw and how he escaped? Perhaps, I like to think, because he thought it might drive us mad, turning us as the readers into that element of Lovecraft, tittering mindlessly at the throne of chaos where the thin flutes pipe (with apologies to Destroy All Monsters). The title is from Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Sand and Shakespeare’s Memory
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